Grounded In Reality

TechCrunch writes a great post about how social media (particularly Twitter and FriendFeed) is becoming too much to handle… so much so that Robert Scoble is even cutting back on his number of Twitter subscriptions. The TechCrunch post concludes:

“So where is the startup that is going to be my information filter? I am aware of a few companies working on this problem, but I have yet to see one that has solved it in a compelling way. Can someone please do this for me? Please? I need help. We all do.”

In a response to this post, Maple Leaf 2.0 seems to differ. Their stance is that TechCrunch just isn’t using the tools right. Another differing opinion comes from Alexander Van Elsa’s blog. (I like his stance best.) He posts that the truly cluttered sensation from ‘too many updates’ only affects the Tech elite. Most users are able to join the conversation when they like, then pop out and smell the roses of the real world.

My personal take on this?

Twitter has been the most recent addition to my social media mix. I had a hard time using the service at first, but after adding the Twitter Facebook application, having Twitter updates sent through my Google Talk (or GChat) account, and being more selective with the users I follow, I find I use it more.

As far as update overload goes, I think I had a taste of that with Twitter. When I first signed on I only followed my friends and co-workers (the few who have joined the service). I then decided to follow a few high profile bloggers on Twitter (who shall remain nameless) because I liked their blog and figured I’d want to see what they twittered about. This is where the trouble came. My Twitter page was always so busy that I found I couldn’t keep track of conversations and quickly lost interest. I think this is what Elsa was talking about in his post: the ‘tech elite’ I was following was too active for my lifestyle.

Just this week I decided enough was enough and I stopped following them. I find I get much more joy from the tool by keeping my feed to a smaller number of users who post at a rate I can handle. Only time will tell if I truly become an adopter of Twitter, but I’m willing to give it a shot.

Summary: If you are worried about information overload the answer is simple, edit-edit-edit. Keep your lists/feeds/subscriptions/follows down to manageable level.

In what could be seen as ‘user generated search results,’ Yahoo is adding a service to its search capabilities called Buzz. Users will be given the option to vote on articles; promoting news they like or demoting news they dislike, that will directly affect what appears on the coveted page 1 of search. An excerpt from an article yesterday on NYTimes.com:

“Yahoo is combining users’ votes with information it gathers from its Internet search service, so that when search traffic spikes for an item or topic, it will get more ‘buzz.’ Yahoo editors, not computer programs, will decide whether an item will be placed on the portal’s front page, which receives more than 90 million visitors in the United States each month.”

BusinessWeek.com also weighed in with a story this morning clarfiying more specifics on how users will interact with Buzz:

“More than 100 major news sites have agreed to place Yahoo “Buzz Up” buttons next to their articles and other content. The partners include Gannett’s (GCI) USA Today, News Corp.’s (NWS) Wall Street Journal, and Time Warner’s (TWX) Entertainment Weekly. A click on the button is tallied as a user endorsement and sent to Yahoo’s Buzz page. Those with the highest scores are considered for placement on Yahoo’s front page. But Yahoo is retaining some editorial control: An internal team will have final say over the stories featured on the main home page. Yahoo says this is to guard against articles deemed lewd, violent, or capable of exposing the company to legal liability…”

Can a service like this really work? What are the implications for businesses that (as a result of Buzz) appear at the top of search results? A demonstration by Yahoo proved to have a surprisingly weighty outcome. An excerpt from the aforementioned NYTimes.com article states:

“In a test of the service this year, Yahoo linked from its front page to content from Esquire magazine for just three hours. In that brief period, traffic to the Esquire.com site, which already allows users of Digg and Reddit to vote on its stories, doubled for the month.”

So the real question is: Will online customer relations now be a company’s SEO strategy?

Services like this one just further implicate that companies must take an interest in what is being said about their brand online. The example above shows a positive spike for Esquire, but what if there were an article about a brand or service that wasn’t so popular? Could developments like these keep your client forever buried in search results?

Late last week, Paul Walker spoke to the New York office about crowdsourcing and the general open source mentality that is further perpetuating itself in marketing communications, interpersonal communication and technology development. I got a chance earlier in the same week to witness a unique model of the “open source philosophy” in action.

On February 12, I attended a Sports Marketing 2.0 Summit in New York City hosted by Pat Coyle, Executive Director of Business for the Indianapolis Colts. The concept of a sports marketing summit itself is not unique. How it came together, though, is distinctly “2.0.” Nearly 60 communications and technology professionals met in Manhattan, many of them for the first time. Most had come to know Pat through his blog at PatCoyle.net which discusses issues in sports marketing now that “fans are in charge.” Pat also created his own companion social network at Sportsmarketing20.com using a platform from Ning.

Over the course of a half day, there were panel discussions on measurement, engagement, communication and socializing that included representatives from a host of technology, sports and marketing entities from Rick Wolf (Business Development, RotoWorld/NBC) to Takkle.com CEO David Birnbaum to Hooman Radfar, founder of widget giant Clearspring Technologies. Conference attendees included ad agencies, companies developing social networking platforms and technologies, email marketers, as well as representatives from individual teams (New York Jets, Washington Redskins) and leagues (NBA, NFL).

Overall, it was a great learning experience and more (albeit unnecessary) evidence that the environment for marketers has changed. Many discussions centered on how to engage consumers online, how to measure engagement, how corporate sponsors can integrate content and monetize their online efforts and ways we’re interacting with certain technologies. A solid summary is offered by event attendee Brian Litvack from wRECK Sports here.

Below are a few other interesting examples of engagement referenced during the course of the day. I’ve got a complete list of attendees and would be happy to further discuss with anyone interested.

Dunder Mifflin Infinity: virtual home for fans of NBC’s “The Office”

Takkle.com: bringing the challenge concept to life with high school athletes

NBA.com Suns: an NBA franchise offers fans a peek inside the locker room

MyColts.net: Online community for Indianapolis Colts fans

——
Steve Bonsignore
GCI Sports

Over the last year, there’s been an explosion of corporate activity within social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut. Companies such as Sun Microsystems, Ernst & Young, Citigroup, and Ford Motor Company are leveraging social sites for recruitment, employee collaboration, customer relations, and localized promotions.

Many companies are also experimenting with social networking for internal communications. IBM’s “Fringe” network lets its employees connect and share information on a global level. Oracle’s internal social project called “Connect” has been a huge success since its launch last summer. Security and control are the main reasons companies opt for their own private networks. The idea of having proprietary information hosted on Facebook or another third-party community is still a risky proposition for many organizations.

But how can corporations – especially those with limited technical development capabilities – launch an internal social network with the power and simplicity of Facebook? Enter “WorkBook” – a secure, server-based software that combines all the capabilities of Facebook with all the controls of a corporate environment. Workbook let’s employees upload files, post comments, and create discussion groups with no danger of the information leaking outside the organization or access being granted to unauthorized personnel.

While it sounds slightly anti-Web 2.0 to build a locked-down environment, the fact is that security is a very real issue. Workbook just launched in December, so it will be interesting to see its evolution in 2008. My guess is that many organizations will consider moving to this type of service vs. depending on third-party sites for internal collaboration.

I had the opportunity to attend a discussion this week about the effects of social media on the political and cause landscape. Jeff Berman, SVP of Public Affairs for MySpace, led the session and talked about the evolution of social networks as mobilization platforms.

I haven’t kept up with Myspace lately, so I was pleased to see that the site is doing more than being hacked. Myspace Impact, the site’s hub for social and civic engagement, is empowering users to locate volunteer opportunities, contribute to charities, and register to vote. Its coolest offering by far is the “Presidential Dialogue Series” where users can engage with candidates in real-time via live webcast and Myspace IM. They just announced the next series event featuring Senator John McCain. On December 3rd, the event will be streamed live on Myspace.com and simulcast on MTV and Chooseorlose.com.

This live interaction is taking YouTube’s video Q&A format to the next level. It’s also feeding Gen Y’s desire for open access and personalized experiences. Jeff shared some interesting stats that speak to Gen Y’s strong sense of civic duty:

-61% of 25 year olds feel personally responsible for making a difference in the world
-78% believe companies have the responsibility to join them in that effort
-Price being equal, 89% are likely to switch brand allegiance based on commitment to shared causes

Compared to average internet users, Myspace users are:

-Twice as likely to interact with a public official/candidate
-45% more likely to research politics and campaign information
-59% more likely to view online videos
[Cone/AMP Research: Oct 2006]

These stats aren’t surprising. What remains to be seen is how this surge of online rallying will impact voter turnout.

Matthew Creamer of AdAge wrote an article entitled Facebook’s Map Might Lead Advertisers Astray about the ever approaching ‘social graph’ for Facebook. The ‘social graph’ will be a tool that, by using profile information, will help advertising and marketing campaigns be successfully targeted to a desired demographic or network. This author appears to be a mild skeptic, pointing out the Achilles heel of all social network profiles; how honest are they?

He posts:

“What (Mark Zuckerberg) is essentially proposing is a new cultural role for the mass online social network that recasts what has been mainly a time waster as a useful and efficient communications tool for business and personal use. …In Mr. Zuckerberg’s high-minded conception, one’s collection of Facebook friends should reflect one’s real-life social network by providing accurate data about users and by being a close-to-comprehensive map of all the important nodes in one’s life.”

He best summarizes the problem with this concept by giving an example from his own life that I feel is fairly universal:

“In the absence of empirical data, I turned to my own circle and asked how well their online networks of Facebook friends reflect their real-life, offline networks — the sum of their business, familiar and social connections. For some, their day-to-day contacts aren’t there. For others, Facebook is wholly a work thing and family members are missing. Two middle-age respondents even expressed frustrations that their college-age children have so far declined to join their network. Without being pressed much, just about all of the respondents — generally heavy users with oft-edited pages — indicated significant gaps or holes in their networks.”

I find this to be very true. I, for one, have complete segments of friends, co-workers and family members who aren’t on Facebook. Admittedly, I’m a heavy user of the network and update my information often, but with key people and information about my life not being represented on my profile, how does Facebook except to capture a true picture of my social network for its graph?

So, the main thought is this: If the information presented on a Facebook page could be false and if your network is incomplete with your real-life counterparts, why introduce a graph that is based on this information? As much as I personally advocate the use of Facebook for networking and brand awareness, I must say I’m pretty skeptical of this new social graph they are proposing.

I liked the author’s concluding statements on this topic and felt it best summarizes the “take with a grain of salt” attitude that many people don’t tend to use with digital media:

“Even if Facebook ends up ‘only’ succeeding as a major ad play, Mr. Zuckerberg can always take solace in the example of a company that’s been an enormous success despite not meeting its high-minded goal. A little firm called Google started out with boasts on nothing less than organizing the world’s information. Its only unimpeachable achievement has been to own the area of search advertising — and a $210 billion market cap.”

Christy Leger
GCI Read-Poland
Austin, TX

Over the past week, Dell has been the topic of many conversations in the blogosphere, spurred by a Forrester Groundswell Award and BusinessWeek article discussing the company’s transformation from digital bystander to leader.  In reading these posts, I am incredibly proud of the GCI team that helped make this happen. (NOTE: Dell is a GCI client)

Below are a few highlights from the blogosphere:

• BusinessWeek: Dell Learns to Listen: Jeff Jarvis takes a guest columnist role to discuss his two-year relationship with Dell and an overview of Dell’s social media initiatives. The online version is complete with a 25-minute video of an interview with Michael Dell (also available on Jeff’s blog: BuzzMachine).   He also posted the un-edited version, which notes a very measurable impact of Dell’s programs:

“Thanks to this new relationship, the company learns about issues online before they do in the press or sometimes in-house. They are stanching the flow of bad buzz. By their measure, negative word of mouth in blogs has dropped from 49 to 22 percent. And my Dell Hell posts, which used to come up third on a Google search for the company, are now relegated to second-page search-engine Siberia. ‘That change in perception just doesn’t happen with a press release,’ Menchaca says.”

• Direct2Dell - Dell’s Blog: Lionel Manchaca did an interview with Jeff near the end of the day and posted the vlog that resulted on Direct2Dell.

• Forrester’s Groundswell blog also mentions Dell’s transformation when referencing the Forrester Groundswell Awards that were given out last week.

Company transformation. Dell.
We created this new category to capture the powerful changes happening across all functions at Dell. The Dell Customer Advocate program, which pursues fast resolution of support problems, decreased the negative share of online comments about Dell by 25%. Direct2Dell, Dell’s frank and informative blog, generates 3.5 million page views per month. Ideastorm, Dell’s innovation community, tallied 500,000 votes for over 7,000 ideas and generated a new product, Dell PC’s with Linux pre-installed. And Employee Storm, an internal idea community, has generated 2,700 ideas and seen visits from 22% of Dell’s employees.

• From Geoff Livingston at The Buzz Bin:

Relationships and RELATIONS are about being human — not God. Together as humans we experience life and grow together. Mistakes happen, and good PR can overcome this. Consider Dell’s incredible lesson in admitting wrongs, listening and changing. This week’s BusinessWeek story is a celebration of relations.

• Our own Paul Walker mentioned that he is “really proud of the people and programs mentioned in the article. Thanks, Dell, for letting us be a part of it.” 

On behalf of GCI, I want to give the entire team a big pat on the back! The consistent creativity and innovation in new media waters is something to be extremely proud of.

We’re wrapping up day two at Forrester’s Consumer Forum, and it’s just about time to head back to the airport. Unfortunately, I still haven’t seen much of the city, but it’s been a good two days. Sightseeing will have to wait until the next trip.

We heard another round of great speakers and panelists today. The highlights for me were Josh Bernoff, Vice President of Forrester Research; Christina Norman, President of MTV Networks; and Henry Jenkins, Co-Director of MIT Comparative Media Studies and author of the book Convergence Culture (a good read). A few highlights…

1) Josh Bernoff’s presentation was a nice bookend to Charlene Li’s presentation yesterday. He discussed business strategies to succeed in the groundswell, reinforcing the point that objectives, not technology, should drive your strategy. He described 5 ways to turn the groundswell to your advantage:

• Listening: learning from what your customers are saying
• Talking: two-way conversation, not just shouting
• Energizing: helping your best customers to recruit others
• Supporting: enabling your best customers to help each other
• Embracing: involving your customers in your product development

While the language is a little different, this is very similar to the World Class Digital Media approach we talk about at GCI (Listen, Influence, Engage, Community). Importantly, a good digital media program has to start with listening and knowing your audience. The technology piece comes last.

2) Christina Norman shared four truths MTV lives by:

• It’s not the medium, but the content that matters most.
• You need to build an emotional connection with your audience based on the foundation of that creative content they want to invest in.
• You need to give the audience the means to find each other.
• You have to let your audience help you shape your brand.

Christina shared many great examples of MTV communities and entertainment platforms, but I was really excited by a new one called Think MTV, which she described as the largest online activist community ever. The community unites passionate young people around a variety of issues ranging from discrimination and poverty to the environment, faith and human rights. It’s a social network that allows people to submit, rate, bookmark and share content on these issues; connect with people like them to mobilize action; and actually get rewarded for taking action. I was skeptical of the rewards piece at first, but MTV makes a good case for it here. They’re creating a badge system that puts the “reward back in rewarding” by offering not only recognition among peers, but a variety of cool prizes.

We work with several non-profit organizations, as well as cause-minded corporations, and this seems like a great place for them to get involved to engage and mobilize a Gen Y/Gen X audience.

3) Lastly, Henry Jenkins gave an entertaining presentation on convergence and participatory culture. He defines convergence as a cultural, rather than a technological process, and says “we now live in a world where every story, image, sound, idea, brand and relationship will play itself out across all possible media platforms.” Generally, this happens organically - within a passionate fan community - from the ground up. But if a company really listens and understands its audience, it can help enable this kind of “trans-media storytelling” from the top down.

Jenkins challenges companies to ask themselves: What communities are out there that feel a deep connection to your brand or products? And what are they doing now that may be hard to do, that you can make it easier for them to do? For example, if customers are finding your ads or creative content online and creating their own mash-ups, don’t resist this. Give them the assets they need to do more. In many cases, this means giving up some control, but the rewards in this participatory culture can be great to marketers who understand and embrace it.

Thanks to the Forrester team for a great conference. Off to the airport!

I’m here in Chicago for Forrester’s Consumer Forum 2007, where the theme of the two-day conference is “Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.” It’s my first time in Chicago, and I’m sad to say I’ve only seen the airport, hotel and one restaurant so far. But on the bright side, Forrester has a phenomenal line-up of speakers and topics like Charlene Li, VP and Principal Analyst for Forrester Research in the social computing space; Christie Hefner, Chairman and CEP of Playboy Enterprises; and Robbie Bach, President of the Entertainment & Devices Devision for Microsoft. And that’s just day one.

My head is spinning with ideas, but I wanted to share a few key insights from day one:

1) Word of the day: “groundswell.” A central theme of the conference, Forrrester defines groundswell as a “social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.” Check out the winners of Forrester’s Groundswell awards here for great examples of organizations using social media to achieve their business goals.

2) When developing a social media strategy, technology should be the last part of the equation. Charlene Li recommends a four-step approach that can be remembered as “POST,” which stands for People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology. Start by assessing the social technographic profile of your customers (see below). Then list your objectives. Next, determine a strategy for achieving those objectives. And lastly, identify the right technology. So next time a planning session begins with, “We need to be in MySpace” or “We want to blog,” take a step back and think hard about the audience first, their current behaviors and the relationship you wish to build with them.

3) Christie Hefner reminded us that while technology is evolving, basic human instincts - to meet someone, to be liked, to laugh - are eternal and universal. A good digital strategy should still tap into these instincts. She also commented that the term “brand” is overused, and I tend to agree. Not every product name is a brand; a brand represents a point of view, attitude and lifestyle that can move from one platform to another.

4) Manish Mehta from Dell (a GCI client) and Stan Joosten at Procter & Gamble teamed up for an interesting panel moderated by David Armano at Critical Mass. The topic: “Always in Beta: How Big Business Can Benefit from ‘Little’ Innovation.” The key messages: approach marketing as an R&D lab, experiment with new marketing techniques, don’t worry so much about ROI if it’s the right thing to do, and give employees permission to fail… as long as they learn something. This really resonated with me, as I frequently find myself having the “ROI of social media” discussion. The thing is - you don’t have to spend a lot of money to dip your toe in the water with social media, and small risks - or “incremental experiments,” as Stan would say - can truly transform a company.

More to come on day two…

An interesting new crowd-sourcing site appeared recently, still in Beta, of course, from The Nielsen Company and is (not-so-cleverly) called: Hey! Nielsen.   The site requires that you register to participate and share your opinion, but without registration, you can search through the results of other folks recommendations.  Feels to me like a mix of Digg, IdeaStorm (for Dell, a GCI client), and TV Guide.

There are a couple of things to look at on the site:

• Opinions
  In topics labeled TV, Movies, Music, Personalities, and Internet, members can post opinions about current shows, bands, songs, people, Web sites, etc.  Then the crowd gets to agree or disagree and add additional comments.
• Rankings
  “Each topic (TV show, Movie, etc.) earns a Hey! Nielsen Score, determined by user opinions, comments, and ratings. Calculated daily, the Hey! Nielsen Score also factors in internet buzz via BlogPulse.com.  There is currenlty about a 7-hour avg for updating statistics information.”
• Calendars
  Soon enough this will be the “TV Guide with opinions”…but it will have to launch first.
• Members
  Looking similar to other social networking profiles…and very similar to Digg’s latest ‘profile’ launch, you will be able to click on a member to see which shows, music, etc they like and dont like.  The earlist member date I saw was in May for NatGuy who claims “I’m one of the folks involved in helping to build this site.”  Nielsen lists how many recommendations they have made and lists all their posts.
• Widgets
  What would a site be if you couldnt see if scrolling on your blog? :)  Therefore, they have created a nice scrolling widget for you to keep up with the latest and greatest recommendations on the site.  Hopefully this will become customizable.

Naturally, if you are related to the entertainment industry, this would be an ideal place to gather consumer insights and responses to your content.  However, it would not be an ideal place to promote your entertainment client unless you are extremely open and transparent in your role.

Eventually, Nielsen sees using the information as statistical evidence in each catagory, but personally I think you will need to let the site live for a good amount of time before you can qualify the information collected as valid.  I am also still stuck on the problem of the ‘online demographic’ setting the opinions of a whole set of humans.  I still feel like it is skewed unless mixed with other forms of information collection.

I am interested to see how others respond to the site and the use of the information as statisical analysis.  Would you believe what they say, just because its Nielsen?